


not as they seem

by tzzzz



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Episode Related, Episode Tag, Fix-It, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Possibly Pre-Slash, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-27
Updated: 2013-06-27
Packaged: 2017-12-16 09:08:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/860409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tzzzz/pseuds/tzzzz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles goes over to tell Derek about the murders and finds Derek still recovering from his injuries and in no shape to have done the things that Isaac seems to think happened.  </p><p>Fix-it for the part where Derek was being an abusive jerk towards Isaac at the end of 3x04.  Spoilers for that episode.</p>
            </blockquote>





	not as they seem

“What the hell, man?” Stiles shouts the second he slams through Derek’s front door, because it’s 6am on a schoolday and Stiles hasn’t had his coffee or his adderal and he’s chasing down a stupid wolf who couldn’t remember to turn on his goddamned phone.

Nobody appears to be home, but Derek’s car was out front. “Derek?”

Stiles smells iron. There’s a suspicious red stain on the floor. “Oh god,” he chokes. “Is that blood?” At least it looks like someone tried to clean it, which means someone survived who cares enough to clean it. “Derek, I’m starting to freak out a little here. I know you love to be a creeperwolf, but now would be a good time to show yourself.”

Just then a very attractive brunette comes sliding down the spiral staircase. She’s wearing workout pants and what looks like one of Derek’s shirts. “Did you turn your phone off so nobody interrupted your sexathon?” Stiles shouts. “Because not only is that rude, but people are _dying_ in case you missed it.”

The girl makes a face. “He wasn’t having sex,” she snaps, scrutinizing Stiles. “Derek, your pack’s not very bright,” she shouts up the stairs.

“Hey!” Stiles protests, because who is she to criticize Derek or the pack when she obviously barely knows them? Except upon second glance, it’s obvious she’s too young for Derek and her eyes are a familiar shade of ambiguous green. Oh, okay maybe he missed the mark a little. “You’re his sister, right? Cora?”

She raises her eyebrows sarcastically. That must also run in the family. “I’m going to pick something up at Deaton’s. Watch him, will you?” She skips out.

Stiles has never been up the staircase. Derek had ignored him when he asked for the grand tour. As he ascends it feels a little like trespassing in the lion’s den (or the wolf’s den in this case). But Cora gave him permission, didn’t she?

“Hey, lazywolf, are you awake? Because three more people have died: military connection this time. Deaton says it’s all about Druids. He’s being less cryptic for a change, but there’s still a lot of research to do and I can’t ditch English again today.”

Stiles stops in his tracks. The blinds are down, but just enough light is seeping through the cracks to see that Derek is propped up in bed. White bandages stained dark red crisscross his chest. “Jesus Christ, Derek. What happened? I forgive you for not answering your phone. God, that looks horrible!”

“The alphas,” Derek’s voice is hoarse and his skin pale. He’s panting shallowly, a grimace staining his usually stunning features. “Deucalion was here. He stabbed me,” his breath hitches, “through the chest with a metal pole.”

“Why the hell did he do that? Why’d he let you go? How did you even survive that? It looks like it pierced your heart and your lungs. Are you okay?”

“I’ll be fine.”

“You don’t look fine.”

“It’s healing,” Derek replies, wincing as he tries to shift into a more comfortable position. “Cora’s going to get me something to speed the healing process. It’ll be better by lunchtime.” 

“So what did Deucalion want?

“He stabbed me to put me in my place and he didn’t kill me because there’s something he wants me to do.”

“What is it?”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m not going to do it.”

“That may be the case, but if we know what he wants we can figure out what he’s going to do.”

“You know, Stiles, you don’t have to know every little thing. Sometimes it’s just not your business.”

“Nope. You don’t get to do that, Derek,” Stiles spits. Normally he has a little more patience for Derek’s two tons of emotional baggage, but people are dying, the FBI is here, even Lydia wants to put his dad in the line of fire and werewolves! He’s stressed out and doesn’t need Derek’s bullshit on top of everything. “I’m done with your guessing games. Over it. Because when your stupid plans inevitably blow up in your stupid face and my friends and my family are in danger because of it, it _becomes_ my business.”

“Fine,” Derek says. “They want me to kill a member of my own pack.”

Stiles gapes. “But why? If they want the pack dead, why not do it themselves? They obviously have the skills.” Stiles gestures to Derek’s bandaged chest.

“He says it gives the alpha more power and that I’ll join him when I do.”

“Well he’s a crazy person and a liar. Don’t believe him!”

“Of course I’m not going to do what he says. But he _is_ powerful and so is his pack. I don’t think he’s lying about how they got to be that way. But if hurting my pack is the price of that power, I’d die first.” 

“So I can tell Isaac to calm the fuck down, then? You didn’t mean to freak him out?”

“You’ve seen Isaac?” Derek asks, looking relieved.

“Well, yeah. He’s staying at Scott’s. So now I have to stop by Scott’s house because Isaac won’t ride bitch on the back of Scott’s dumb dirtbike and now I’m werewolf chauffeur Stiles. So, just let me give you the sitrep and would it kill you to turn your phone--”

“Why is Isaac at Scott’s?” Derek’s brow furrows. He has the nerve to look betrayed.

“What do you mean, ‘why is Isaac at Scott’s?’ Because you kicked him out, you asshole! He’s an orphaned teenager and you’re his guardian, where the hell else is he supposed to go?”

“I didn’t kick Isaac out,” Derek says, scooting himself forward like he means to get up. It looks horribly painful.

“I think throwing a glass of water at him like his _abusive father_ and telling him you can’t have him around now that Cora is here is pretty unambiguous Derek. Or is that just how you show you care in Derek world?”

Derek’s eyes flash and he leavers himself halfway to standing before collapsing back onto the bed with a grunt. Red blood blooms across the bandage on his chest. 

“Okay, okay, it’s fine. I know you care. Just, for the love of god, stay down. There’s only so much blood and spewing and gaping chest wounds and overall gross terrifying-ness a guy can handle in one day and finding a guy strangled by a designer dog leash has used up my quota.” Stiles kneels on the bed so that he can help Derek get himself situated back against the headboard. 

“I didn’t say anything to Isaac,” Derek pants, pressing a hand against his chest. “I was unconscious.”

“Well fuckity, fuck, fuck, Derek. Not good. This is _so_ not good. Do you realize what this means?”

“That the alphas want me to kill Isaac?”

“Well, there’s that, obviously. But it also means that not only is there an alpha pack capable of turning you into a barbecue skewer and some Celtic wannabe murdering three people a day for an unknown reason that may or may not produce horrible magical results, but we definitely can’t trust anything that Isaac has seen, maybe anything that any of us have seen. I mean, maybe I’m not even talking to you right now. Maybe Isaac is the sane one, and I’m in your bedroom talking to a wall or I’m dreaming and you don’t even _have_ a bedroom, just like a dogbed or a den or something. _Or_ I’m still asleep or the alphas have captured me and one of them has their claws in my neck right now or there’s a shapeshifter and--” Stiles is starting to hyperventilate a little, because if he can’t trust his own perceptions, what can he trust?

“We’re here. I’m real. I have a real bed like a real person,” Derek affirms.

“Well that’s completely unhelpful, Derek, because if you were a hallucination, you’d say exactly the same thing.”

“Well, you know what is also really unhelpful? You having an existential crisis in my bedroom at six in the morning. So let’s just assume that you and I are both who we say we are and we’re actually having this conversation. What now?”

“Well, it’s pretty obvious that they’re trying to rile Isaac up, isolate him from you and maybe push him towards joining Scott. I mean, according to Scott, the alphas were messing with Isaac all day while they had you pinned down here. They must’ve found out about his abusive father when they did their mindwipe thing,” he gestures vaguely at his head. “Because they’re trying to trigger him. First they lock him in a confined space and then they make him think that you, the only positive fatherish figure he’s ever had, are doing the same thing that his dad did to him. 

“It all hinges on driving a wedge far enough between you two that he’ll provoke you enough to kill him. So to prevent it, you need to build that trust up again, explain what it is the alphas want and how they’re manipulating his relationship with you to get it. I know that it’s against every paranoid, enigmatic bone in your body, but you need to just fucking communicate. It’s probably the reason they’re targeting you: your pack is unstable enough that they _can_ drive a wedge between you.”

“Fine.” Derek looks away from Stiles, petulantly, but Stiles can see that he’s made his point. Derek starts moving to get up again and Stiles pushes him back down.

“Dude, where do you think you’re going?”

“To talk to Isaac.”

Stiles rolls his eyes. “It’s 2013, Derek. The divide and conquer thing is alot harder when you can just _call_ the guy instead of appearing out of nowhere and scaring people. You just have to pretend that you have actual social skills. Stay there and work on not bleeding all over yourself and let me get your phone.”

“It’s broken.”

“What? Did the alphas break it?”

Derek winces. “It got wet.”

“Well that’s dumb. Did you drop it in the toilet? Because I did that once. The Verizon repair guy was not happy.”

Derek looks down at his chest, pointedly.

“Oh, right, you bled out enough to short circuit your cell phone, because this is apparently now my life. Lovely. Here, try not to bleed all over mine.” Stiles dials for him, because Derek’s hands are shaking a little.

“Isaac?” Derek says. “Yeah, it’s me. Look, I need to talk to you about last night.” ... “No, don’t apologize. You didn’t do anything wrong and you don’t need to move out.” … “I know you think that’s what I said, but trust me, I would _never_ ask you to leave your home without an explanation.” ... “Whatever you saw wasn’t me. Deucalion had me incapacitated. You can ask Stiles.”

When Stiles takes the phone back, the voice on the other end almost breaks his heart. It's timid, but hopeful. “Is it true? Did he really not mean it?”

“Yes, Isaac. He didn’t mean it because he didn’t even say it. Trust me, he can’t even get out of bed, let alone start throwing things at you.” Derek glares. Of course he still doesn’t like to admit any weakness, especially not to his betas. Idiot. 

“It looked like him. It felt real.”

“Yeah, I know. We haven’t figured out how they’re doing it, but it definitely wasn’t Derek. I know he’s an emotionally constipated asshole with horrible leadership skills and a penchant for cryptic bullshit, but he obviously cares about you.” Derek glares, but Stiles just give his ‘what can you do?’ shrug. “Even the world’s biggest failwolf isn’t misguided enough to give you the bite in order to protect you from your father and then turn around and do the exact same thing he was protecting you from. They’ve gotten in your head, but deep down, you know he wouldn’t do that.”

‘You aren’t that dumb, right?’ Stiles mouths at Derek, because he’s not actually sure. Sometimes Derek’s incompetence is so mind-boggling that Stiles has ceased to be surprised by anything he does, no matter how impossibly stupid it seems.

Derek makes an aborted attempt to grab the phone from Stiles, who dances away from the bed easily.

“Look, Isaac, come over here and see for yourself if you don’t believe me. I’ll make Derek call you in sick from school.”

He hangs up and he and Derek glare at each other for a moment. “Well this has been a bag full of kittens, but some of us do have to get to school,” Stiles says to fill the awkwardness. “Also, you don’t happen to know how to say ‘you’re full of shit’ in French do you?”

“Tu te fous de ma gueule. Why?”

Stiles shrugs. “Just in case I need it one day. Also, I seriously hate you. How can you be tall, dark, and handsome with super strength and super speed _and_ speak French? You’re skewing the curve, Derek. It’s not fair to the rest of us mortals.”

Derek shrugs. “Get out of here, Stiles.” It sounds almost fond.


End file.
